Shipments and tracking

Booking couriers, labels, pickups and RTO.

A shipment is a parcel. Booked from the order screen through Shiprocket, so you never have to keep a courier portal open in another tab.

Booking a shipment

  1. Open a paid order and create the shipment.
  2. Pick a courier from the rates offered. They differ on price, speed and how well they serve that pincode.
  3. An AWB — the tracking number — is assigned.
  4. Print the label, and the manifest if your courier wants one.
  5. Schedule the pickup.

With Auto-create shipment on paid switched on, step one happens by itself as soon as an order is paid.

Choosing a courier

The cheapest is not always right. Weigh up the rate against delivery time and, most of all, whether that courier is any good at the destination pincode. A cheap courier that fails delivery costs you the return leg and the customer.

Tracking

Once the tracking webhook is configured, status updates arrive automatically as the parcel moves — no polling, no checking by hand. Each shipment carries its courier name, AWB, current status and a tracking URL you can share.

Parcels that stop moving

A shipment that has not changed status for a few days usually means something went wrong at the courier: a failed delivery attempt nobody logged, a parcel sitting in a hub, an address the driver could not find.

Chase these before the customer does. A proactive message about a delay is a completely different conversation from an apology after a complaint.

RTO — returns to origin

RTO is where COD margin goes to die. You pay the courier both ways, so a returned COD order costs you money rather than merely earning none. Watch the RTO rate as a number, not a feeling.

What actually reduces it:

  • Confirm COD orders before booking — a WhatsApp message asking them to confirm.
  • Check the phone number. Unreachable customer, failed delivery, parcel comes back.
  • Set delivery expectations honestly. People refuse parcels that arrive later than promised.
  • Watch repeat offenders. The same number refusing several COD orders is a pattern.
  • Nudge towards prepaid with a small discount. It is usually cheaper than the RTO rate.

Cancelling a shipment

Cancel it from the order if the order falls through. Do this before the pickup — once the courier has the parcel, it is a return rather than a cancellation.

Package dimensions

Couriers charge on volumetric weight as well as actual weight. Default dimensions are set in the Shiprocket integration; keep them honest. A default box much larger than what you really ship quietly inflates every rate you are quoted, and every rate you pass on to customers.

Still stuck? Message us on WhatsApp — we would rather answer than have you guess.